Seismic imaging and subsurface interpretation are performed to obtain, as accurately as possible, a geologic model of a subsurface volume of the earth. Conventional industry workflows generally include the following serial process steps: (a) process the seismic data into 3D seismic image volumes of the subsurface volume of the earth; (b) extract attributes (e.g., velocity, Poisson's ratio, density, acoustic impedance, etc.) at each subsurface point in the subsurface volume of the earth using tabulated and other known petrophysical data and rock properties; (c) interpret the geometry of the 3D seismic image volumes, log information, and geological analogs on an interpretation workstation to obtain the structure, stratigraphic, and geologic morphology; and (d) construct a geological and reservoir subsurface model from extracted attributes and the obtained structure, stratigraphic, and geologic morphology.
Conventional industry workflows have limited reconciliation/integration of earth models used in imaging with interpretation of structure and stratigraphy, and with reservoir properties from seismic estimation. Each process step has inherent uncertainties and non-uniqueness that cannot be well defined quantitatively. Consequently, it is difficult to quantify the uncertainties and non-uniqueness of geological reservoir models yielded by conventional industry workflows. Most industry workflows resort to geostatistical methods to estimate uncertainties and non-uniqueness. Even so, there is no guarantee that the resulting, probabilistic models are consistent with all the data utilized in generating the models.